aerynnatalia642 's review for:

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

5.0

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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At the start of this review, I’m only halfway through the book - but I already know it’s going to be 5 stars just like the first one was. The only problem I had with the first book was that I found Maud a bit irritating, but in this one she really came into her own, and her stubbornness felt like a good thing rather than an annoying one.

I’m switching between the audiobook and physical book depending on what I’m doing, and the audiobook is exceptionally good. She really gets the voices, is doing a great American accent, and is making it a very enjoyable listen. If I could focus on audiobooks well enough to listen to the whole thing, that’s how I’d choose to do it. It really adds something to the story!

Watching Maud come to the realisation she’s interested in women is just done so well that I feel like I really understand and relate to her. And I love how direct she is, so any hints of upcoming miscommunication are very quickly squashed. (The miscommunication trope is oh-so-painful.)

And obviously I’ve not reached the end yet, but I think it’s real interesting how this book has a whole star rating lower than the other two when it’s a sapphic romance and the others are mlm romance. I think maybe there’s a bit of sexism in the reviews there—people coming in from the first one because of the plot when they only read it for mlm romance but sticking through this one so they could read the third, and not gelling with it cause it’s based around women. And then people reading it JUST for the sapphic book without the first one at all, and feeling like Maud is underdeveloped because they weren’t introduced to her in the first book, and the world is complicated because they didn’t read the intro to it.

Now, an update on my thought since reaching the end:

I absolutely love Ross. I’ll be honest, I think it’s partially down to the narration—though a lot of it is just the writing, the narrator is doing a brilliant job with his voice and working class accent—but he’s brilliant. He started off as a reluctant part of the crew, and gradually got more invested; whilst I wasn’t expecting to love him so much, I’m so glad he was a part of this book!

I loved that the main couple were able to have third act conflict without a breakup, and that they managed to get over it in a way that felt healthy. And the sudden reveal of Violet’s past was done so well—though now I’m desperate for Maud to find out about it! I really hope that in the next book in the trilogy, we see more of this pair as well as the first two—because whilst I loved this book, I miss Robin and Edwin.

I was also surprised by how much I liked Hawthorn in this one, though I will be slightly sad if he somehow will have been the character with the most “screen time” across the three books, since the boys weren’t in this one at all. 

But I loved it either way. I’d definitely recommend this book and this series!